Let me take a minute to introduce myself.  My name is Tod and I've been working in IT since 1999 (officially).  I was a part-time sys-admin for a small accounting firm in Mount Vernon, WA in the late 90's while I was also a full time public accountant at the same firm (my college degree is actually in Accounting from the University of Houston - Clear Lake). What can I say, but I followed the typical career path of an IT engineer...how many of you out there just happened to be the guy in the office who could 'fix it' when it came to computers?  That was me, so the partners in my firm asked me to run the network while also handling my responsibilities as a staff accountant.  As it turns out I hate public accounting and really liked learning technology.  :)  It was only ~15 hosts on a Cat 3 network running a Netware 3.12 server.  I did that for a few years before deciding to follow my little brother into the world of Microsoft and IT officially.

I have been in/with Microsoft since October 1999. Again, I followed a somewhat typical career path as far as Microsoft goes.  I was a vendor for a few years, moved to a contract position for a short period and finally became a full time employee.  All of my positions have been in Operations which means that basically my job has always been to 'get shit done' and 'keep it running.'

Over the years I've learned several handy things about Windows NT, W2K, SQL, T-SQL, Batch-scripting, WSH scripting, VBscript, IIS, Active Directory, ASP.Net and a few other areas I'm sure I just can't think of right now.    I consider myself a Jack-of-All-Trades-Master-of-None.  Obviously that's a double-edged sword since I can work on/with just about anything in our environment, but am often not considered the 'area specialist.'  As I said above, it often results in simply meaning that I'm the guy that just gets the shit done.  I don't spend a lot of time pontificating on all of the possibilities and theories regarding the most efficient method of resolving an issue, but typically balance efficiency with speed and necessity to reach a desired result. 

So there you have it, my job in a nutshell.  :) 

My intention here is to discuss some current issues I see in our environments and how I/we handle them so that others can hopefully glean something from the learning process I go through each and every day here at Microsoft.  As I said, I'm not an expert in any area, but I do know quite a few who are and am often able to point people in the right direction to get their questions answered.  I will be adding relevant technical links along with some fun sites to cruise on your down time.  Maybe I'll even throw up some funny pics when I get a chance.  

Peace!  :)